• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Social media algorithms present different things to different people. So if you fall for a grift, the algorithm will just show you things that support the grift and never show anything that debunks it.

    Someone going down a weird rabbit hole will stay on that for a long time, watching many ads along the way. Someone that starts to think “hey maybe there’s something to this thing” then immediately sees something debunking it may conclude “well that last video was a waste of time” and may decide to go do something else that’s a more worthwhile use of their time. End result, they watch fewer ads. Less revenue for the social media companies.

    Weird internet rabbit holes are more profitable than seeing contradicting opinions. So the algorithms are tuned to send people down rabbit holes and not offer information contradicting them.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yes, but it’s important to note that confirmation bias is always present in our views of the world because our brain tends to keep things simple by prefering confirming to contradicting information. It just has been amplified by recommendation algorithms meant to increase engagement by showing you “more of the stuff you like”, thus trapping you in a filter bubble you might not even be aware of.